Restarting
by kookith
Summary: oneshot. NeumannxNatarle, Murrue. “But I don’t want to go back to that place...where I lost you.”


**Restarting**

The setting sun painted the summer sky orange, the evening rays illuminating the unlit room through the large glass window. Arnold Neumann sat quietly on the sofa with a mug of warm coffee in his hand, his emerald eyes focused on the television screen across the room.

The sudden ring of the door bell startled him, and he hesitated for a small moment before making his way to the door. He wondered who it could be, because ever since he moved in here he had very few visitors, and none of them would appear at his doorstep without informing him beforehand.

He looked through the eyehole, and the moment he realized who it was, he let out a slightly helpless sigh. Reluctantly opening the door for his uninvited guest, he gave her a rather forced smile.

"It's been a long time," the woman smiled back, greeting him politely as she tucked a few strands of her brown hair behind her ear, and her golden orbs reflecting a complication of emotions similar to his.

He nodded in agreement, and invited her into his small flat. "So, what brings you here?" He asks from the kitchen as he fixed her a cup of coffee from the pot the prepared just a few minutes ago.

She did not answer immediately, instead turning her attention to the news showing on the television, as she waited quietly for him to join her in his living room.

He re-entered the living room, handing over a mug to her as he took his seat on the other end of the sofa, and repeated his question, "What brings you here, Murrue?"

She took a sip from the mug, the setting it down onto the coffee table in front of her. She thinks for a bit, and decides to go straight to the point. "We're launching the Archangel. We need you."

He did not know whether to feel flattered for the invitation or to laugh at the idea. "Archangel? For what?" he asks.

"I believe you've heard about the Princess's marriage plans," Murrue cocked her head toward the television, gesturing Arnold to take a quick look at the news program showing on the television screen. "Kira plans to…save her from making a decision she will later regret."

"Kidnap, you mean." Arnold states flatly.

She laughs softly at his bluntness, and asks, "Will you come?"

He looks at her, but he does not answer. And she understood it as an unspoken refusal.

The conversation swiftly descended into a long period of discomforting silence, until she spoke again in a deep, apologetic voice, "Do you hate me, for what I did?"

Her question caught him by surprise, and he stares at her for a moment. His features then soften as he swings his head slightly.

"But I…" she hesitated, and as her memories resurfaced it brought along a wave of guilt evident in her shivering voice, "I killed her, because I was angry for what happened…to Mwu."

She still remembers vividly the intense mixture of grief and rage she was feeling when she ordered to return fire, yet she cannot recall if it was her logic or her emotions that took over in the critical moment, because it all happened too fast that everything came and went in a blur. And when the battle was over, all she knew was that that was not how she wanted it to be, but what had happened was already irreversible. And even till this very day, she feels she cannot be forgiven for her sins.

"You did it because you were the Captain of the ship. Your duty was to protect all of us." He does not know how true this justification was, especially in her part, but he reassures her with all the sincerity he can muster, because he knows exactly how it feels. He knows how difficult it was to live a life with so much guilt pent up, and it was only in making himself believe in this reasoning, these exact words, that made his life bearable after losing that important part of his life.

"There should've been another way. She didn't have to die…"

He looks away from her, clearly affected by her words; her reasoning had an oddly comforting appeal to it, but he knew that looking for possibilities that could no longer be verified would only hurt more, and it was good for neither of them. "That was the only choice then. She definitely would've understood."

She manages a small, appreciative smile. Hearing these words coming from him felt almost like they were coming from the woman herself, and although she knows she will always carry that sense of regret with her, the burden feels much lighter already.

They engage in another while of small talk, until she decides that it is time for her to leave.

As she steps out the front door, she turns around, politely thanking him for his hospitality, and asks for the last time, "Please, reconsider the invitation. You're the only one we can all rely on for the job, we really do need you."

He barely makes out a smile as he nods, but still promises her, "I'll think about it."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

His former superior's sudden visit had set him into a melancholic mood, and all he did afterwards was waste his time away in front of the television that aired shows he hardly paid any attention to. And slowly, he drifted in a careless sleep.

When he woke up again, he noticed it was still night. He shifted around a bit to get himself into a more comfortable position, and in the blurriness he caught sight of something in the corner of his eye — or someone, to be exact.

She was sat at the other end of the sofa he was lying on, and she looked at him with much gentleness, as if patiently waiting for him to finally recognize who she was. Her dark hair gleamed in a hue of purple under the midnight moon, and her skin was in such a ghostly pale that it was like the moonlight was shining through her. She was too beautiful, and too unreal.

And he was mesmerized.

He sat up cautiously, fearing that if he moved too abruptly this woman before him would vanish like it was all an illusion. Maybe it was, but at least she was not vanishing yet. "Natarle…" he lets her name trail in his voice a bit, for he has not heard himself call this name since a very long time ago.

She smiles, but with worry in her eyes. "You look a bit lost."

Unbelieving, he reaches out his hand and hesitantly strokes her cheek. He felt a tinge of warmth on his fingertips, and he slowly cupped both of his hands on her face, greedily taking in every last bit of warmth on her cheeks. "Natarle…Is it really you?" He almost chokes on his words, still unable to comprehend her existence.

When she nods and lets out a small "Hmm" sound as confirmation, he pulls her close and rests his forehead against hers, gratefully relishing the sensation of having her within his reach once again. It did not matter how she came back to him anymore, all he wanted was this moment now.

After a while she lightly pulled apart, and looked deep into his eyes with slight disappointment. "Why do you not want to go back to the Archangel?"

He lowered his head, avoiding her gaze like a schoolboy caught not handing in homework. He does not want to see her disappointed, but neither does he want to go back to that warship. That stupid war; enough is enough.

"They need you, you know that." Her voice is firm, but still gentle. He knows that tone, and he knows that she is not criticizing him, but trying to persuade him to rethink his decision, because ever since the moment Murrue asked for his help, he had a feeling that this was what she would have wanted him to do.

"But I don't want to…" He mumbled in an uncharacteristically childish way, his voice insecure as he grasped tight onto her hand.

"Arnold, they all need you. They trust you, and they rely on you. Just like how I do."

"No." He refused with a decisive swing of his head.

She sighed quietly, and gently palmed his cheek with her hand, lifting his face up towards her. "Arnold," she spoke in a tone that sounded more like a plea than persuasion, "I hadn't been able to protect the Archangel. I almost let you die, and them as well. I don't want anything to happen to them. Please, could you protect them, in place of me?"

He could tell he was losing touch with his sensibleness when he started aiming his internal rage at his former comrades, _'Why? Why should she care about them when they were the very reason she died?' _

He knows that if he agrees, he will step onto that warship again, return to the battlefield, and into space, eventually. And he does not want to be in any of those places.

He looked at her with much pain and unwillingness in his frown, and when his vision of her beautiful face started to blur, he realized he was in tears. He pulled her even closer, and buried his head in her shoulder, hiding his tears from her view.

"But I don't want to…" his voice trembled uncontrollably as he spoke with agony, "…to go back to that place…_where I lost you_."

She remains silent for a while, and then wrapped her arms securely around him. She whispers into his ear, "I've never left you. I've always been here, by your side. And I will always continue to be."

He nodded against her shoulder, and held her as tightly as his strength allowed him to. "So you will stay with me tonight?"

"I will," she promised.

Hearing her words gave him a sense of security that he had not felt in a long time, and he held her close against himself as he laid back down on the sofa, slowly drifting back into a peaceful slumber.

And when he woke again, it was already morning.

The moment he jerked his eyes open, he knew he should not be expecting to see her again. "It was a…dream?" he asked himself a question he already knew the answer to while he recalled every detail of the dream he had — a dream too beautiful that it hurt to wake up from.

He sat up, and felt something warm and wet fall from the corner of his eye. He wipes it off, and could not help but mock his own naivety.

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

"Murdock's already in the hanger prepping his crew. If you're looking for Neumann, he's probably in the observation deck."

Murrue quickly thanked the crewman for the information, and went looking for the latter of her two former comrades.

As the doors to the deck slid open for her, she was too captivated by the picture that entered her vision that she almost forgot to breathe.

The helmsman of the Archangel stood looking outside the huge glass window with his back facing the door, and beside him was the woman who was once second-in-command of this ship, looking over at him quietly with adoration in her features. She was had a very peaceful aura surrounding herself, and her pastel silhouette was so faint that Murrue feared by the next time she blinked her eyes, the woman would have faded away.

The woman seems to have noticed her arrival, and she turns around towards her direction. That moment Murrue notices how odd the picture was; the woman was wearing a long and simple white dress that put her so out of place in this ship, yet the uniform Murrue remembers her always wearing looked much less pleasant than how she did now. And when she smiled, she gave such a warm smile that Murrue felt her emotions overflowing. She almost wanted to run over to her, hug onto her tightly, and apologize for what she had done, but the smile on the woman's face told her that it was not necessary, for all was already understood.

"Natarle…" she murmurs under her breath with a wobbly voice, returning a smile of thankfulness.

The woman blushes, and glances briefly at the man next to her, then looking back at Murrue as if she was asking for a favor. _"Please take good care of him for me," _Murrue could make out the words she mouthed, but she could not hear her voice coming from them.

"Captain."

Murrue snaps out of the interaction with the woman, and quickly looks over to the owner of the voice that called out to her. She ignores him for a second to return to the woman, only to find that she was nowhere to be seen anymore.

She slowly walks up to the blue-haired man, up to the spot where she last saw the woman standing.

"You know," she starts hesitantly, "for a moment back there I thought I saw Natarle, standing right here next to you. I guess my imagination's running wild."

He stares at her in astonishment. "Maybe it really is her," he muses, his voice not mocking her but genuinely believing, if not a bit pleased.

She was at first surprised by his response, but then lets out a soft giggle. "Um-hmm, it must have been her. She looked very different from how I remembered her to be…She was wearing a long white dress, and she didn't have any make-up on. And she smiled at me. She looked so content, so relaxed…so beautiful." Her words started to slow down in the middle, and she paused for a while at the end, until she found enough courage to say the last few words, "Maybe that is how she would be now if she had survived."

"Not necessarily," Arnold replies stiffly, and Murrue feared that she had said the wrong thing. He smirks, and continues, "She would probably have jumped back onto this ship in the first opportunity she finds, and you'd be coming here crying for help from me to get her back off."

She laughs as she pictured the amusing scene, which he soon joins her with a few chuckles. When they finally quiet down, she turns to his in all seriousness, "Thank you, Lieutenant Neumann, for coming back."

Arnold nodded. "It is what she would have wanted."

And he swears in his heart that he will protect this ship by all means — as his promise to her.

**

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**A/N: **So…Not too sure about what to say on this one. Erm, did anyone get the feeling that they were reading a ghost story? I hope it didn't give any of you goosebumps, cuz that's not my intention. To clear things up, what Arnold saw was really a dream, but what Murrue saw was…well, prolly hallucination. So yeah, Arnold's normal, Murrue's not. XD (Murrue-fans please don't kill me!!) Anyways, this story was originally intended for my 50th Review Hit in Celebrations, but the 25th Hit was depressing enough already, and I remember promising something a bit happier, so I put this up as a separate one-shot. As for the 50th Hit, it's a year and half late, and still counting. Yeah, shoot me.

So, the following is a load of rambling on Natarle's death scene that some of you might just want to skip. If not, read along, but please keep in mind that it's just my personal opinion, though I don't mind hearing out your opinion on this if you've got one, as long as they're not flames. :P

I never liked how the last AA vs Dominion scene played out with the you-kill-Mwu-you-die-look in Murrue's eyes when she ordered to return fire. It always gave me the feeling that despite the fact that AA was in a dangerous position then and there and firing at Dominion was the only way to ensure their safety, Murrue returned fire for a more personal reason than a logical one, which I think it's rather sad and unfair to both her and Natarle. Murrue does not strike me as a person who would kill a friend as revenge, as devastating as losing her lover might be, and it also means that Natarle's last efforts/thoughts/wishes never reached Murrue (which sadly, is what happens in reality sometimes…But that's another matter). Therefore, I still refuse to believe that Murrue killed Natarle as revenge; I prefer to see it as her being left with no choice, and although she was very angry with what happened to Mwu, she returned fire because it was the only way out, but then sort of blames herself for having killed a friend. And I hope I've been able to portray this in the story.

**P.S.** I most probably won't be able to update again any time soon, as my exams are starting in two weeks, and I've also got quite a lot planned out for after exams. I've been working on the next chapter(s) of Forget Me Not a (long) while ago, but when I got back to it recently I found a lot that I wanted to change, so the next time I come back to my fics I might start working on that first. BUT, nothing's absolute, and I want to see if you guys have any preferences regarding my next update, so I've put up a poll for you guys to vote so I could get a general idea. Oh by the way, anyone interested in sending me a PM? Pretty please? I really wanna try the new feature out, cuz it looks fun!!!

Anyway, please review!! I'd love to hear you feedback on this one!!


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